Acquired
04:20:44 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[04:20:44] S1: Yep. Alright. Quintessence? [04:20:47] S0: Yes. So mine is Disney managed to take not only a set of IP and build their flywheel, but a cohesive set of IP, an opinionated universe of timeless stories about durable emotional story arcs that are universally applicable that work together as one. And that is something that can stay relevant and, of course, monetize for a very long time across generations. They can't fully avoid being a hits based business. They are a movie studio, but they've got about as far away from it as they possibly can. Mhmm. [04:21:22] S1: It's funny listening to you say that. I think that entire passage could equally apply to Nintendo. Yeah. Which really just shows how the companies they are the two flywheel companies. They are the two intellectual property flywheel companies out there. Yeah. Okay. So my quintessence goes all the way back to the beginning of the episode, and Marceline [04:21:42] S0: Of course, does. [04:21:43] S1: Art and commerce. Those two things got married in Walt's head when he was a little kid, and that is Disney. It really is art. When Disney is at its best, what they make is not just a commercial product. It exists at a higher level than that. And it is married to this incredible commerce engine that is in of itself beautiful. And, like, Disneyland and Disney World and all the parks are the most perfect expression of that.
04:21:43 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[04:21:43] S1: Art and commerce. Those two things got married in Walt's head when he was a little kid, and that is Disney. It really is art. When Disney is at its best, what they make is not just a commercial product. It exists at a higher level than that. And it is married to this incredible commerce engine that is in of itself beautiful. And, like, Disneyland and Disney World and all the parks are the most perfect expression of that. [04:22:13] S0: In. That sounds exactly right. The sight lines, man. The the I I like going to Disneyland just to walk around. It's the craziest thing. I the rides are free, and I have just as much fun not going on them even though I've already paid for them. [04:22:28] S1: Any parent who's been to Disney with their kids knows exactly what I'm talking about, and it is, like, irreplicable at any other company or place in the world. Alright. Before we do carve outs, I've got one fun little thing that didn't make the narrative. So when Disney launched Donald Duck in 1934, they hired radio actor Clarence Nash to do his voice. Do you know how Clarence Nash got his start doing animal voices on the radio? You won't guess it, but it's an awesome acquired crossover. He was the radio spokesperson for Adore Dairy Farms Woah. In Southern California. [04:23:14] S0: Trader Joe's. [04:23:15] S1: Trader Joe's. [04:23:17] S0: That's awesome. [04:23:18] S1: Crossover. Trader Joe's Donald Duck. There you go. [04:23:20] S0: Trader Joe's original milk supplier before they got bought by Trader Joe's competitor seven Eleven.
04:23:20 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[04:23:20] S0: Trader Joe's original milk supplier before they got bought by Trader Joe's competitor seven Eleven. [04:23:25] S1: Yep. That's right. And, of course, Trader Joe's itself was in part inspired by the enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland. [04:23:33] S0: That's right, which we didn't talk about, but Walt also owned that personally. It opened in '63. He put up the capital for it. I think WED owned it, and it was ticketed separately. I think it was, like, an extra 75¢ or something to go to Walt Disney's personal tiki room, which is why it's named [04:23:49] S1: Tiki Room. That's right. Alright. Carve outs. What you got? [04:23:52] S0: Alright. Follow-up to yours from the Vanguard episode. The shoes Brooks vanguards are indeed great. I ordered a pair. They're excellent. I'm not wearing them today because they're not squishy enough to stand for whatever we're at, nine hours. [04:24:07] S1: Yes. But they are great shoes. I got two pairs. [04:24:10] S0: I wear them around the neighborhood. They're awesome. I have two YouTube channels. Oh, nice. One is Defunctland. Oh, yeah. Watch this channel all the time. I forgot about it for a while, and then I rediscovered it while we were doing research. It is the stories of either Defunct or Never Built theme parks. And it walks you through the insanity of Action Park in where is that? New Jersey? [04:24:33] S1: Yep. I think that's right.
04:24:33 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[04:24:33] S1: Yep. I think that's right. [04:24:34] S0: Tons of great Disney ones, Disney parks that were never built. There's a great one on the the Florida project, so I highly recommend Defunctland. My second one is Animagraphs. There's not a lot of videos on this channel, but they're all so cool. It is three d models explained by a narrator of how really interesting pieces of machinery work. I've used it for at least two episodes that I can think of off the top of my head. One, how a mechanical watch works, and two, how a Formula one car works. I highly recommend the channel, Animagraphs. Nice. It is awesome.
04:25:09 · David Rosenthal
[04:25:09] S1: I also have two carve outs. My first one is we got a new car, a Volvo e x 30. The little guy? The little guy. A, it is awesome. It's like the perfect car for San Francisco. It fits in tight parking spaces, but it can hold my whole family. It can hold a bunch of gear. B, oh my god. Chinese EVs are incredible. So Volvo is owned by Geely, which is a Chinese company. And the e x 30 is a Geely platform EV with Volvo branding unlike the other Volvo cars. I mean, this thing is crazy. It only costs, like, $35,000, and it's awesome. Unfortunately, that leads to c, which is Volvo just canceled it in The US right after No way. Got it. Yeah. I think because of tariffs. Yeah. Oh. It is an amazing car. You can no longer buy it in The US, but you can internationally. It was a short window. And, like, man, I get Chinese EVs now. This is a really, really good car for not a lot of money. Okay. My second carve out is the San Francisco Symphony. Jenny and I went the other night. They have a new music director coming in, Ellum Chan, and this was her first performance since being named music director. She's awesome. She's 39 years old. She's so much fun and so much energy. And going to the symphony, which I hadn't been in forever, made me realize that actually through classical animation, I got a ton of exposure to classical music growing up. I think more than anything else, like through Disney films and Looney Tunes and Warner Brothers, I was just sitting there like, man, I feel like I should be watching some animation right now.
04:26:54 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[04:26:54] S0: Awesome. Alright. Well, we have got some thank yous to people who helped us with our research. But first, to our partners this season. JPMorgan, trusted, reliable payments infrastructure for your business no matter the scale. Jpmorgan.com/acquired, to Vercel, the developer tools and cloud infrastructure, to build and scale fast, secure applications on the web, vercel.com/acquired, to ServiceNow, the platform that puts AI to work for people, servicenow.com/acquired, and Statsig, bringing experimentation, feature flags, and product analytics into one unified system for product teams, statsig.com/acquired. Thanks to all four of these companies for being awesome partners with us this season as we Yes. Wrap here with this finale and leave you with a cliffhanger here over the summer when we'll be back for our fall season in August. [04:27:41] S1: Disney part two. Yes. The Renaissance.